Chapter Text
Tapping her foot as she waited for the elevator to reach the top floor of the CatCO Worldwide Media building, Kara Danvers once more wished she had super speed or flight. After a late night of research for one of her articles, she had failed to set her alarm and now was rushing to get to work, hopefully before incurring the wrath of her boss Cat Grant.
The elevator finally dinged at the top floor and Kara hurried from the elevator, dumping her bag at her desk and rushing straight to Cat's office. There was no way to sneak in and the moment the glass door creaked, all eyes were on her.
"Ah, Kiera, how nice of you to join us." Cat said, lowering her glasses to give Kara a glare.
"I'm sorry Miss Grant, I was-"
"Save it Keira. I'm not interested in your excuses."
Had it not been for the five years of dedication as Cat's personal assistant, Kara knew she would have been fired on the spot. Despite working hard to maintain the image that she didn't care for any of her employees, Cat had a soft spot for Kara and often let her get away with things no one else would. This being one of them to a certain extent.
"We were just discussing new assignments for next month's issue of CatCo and since you missed out on the pitches, you won't mind me assigning you your story, would you Keira?"
It was a trick question. Kara was getting the story no matter what and resistance wouldn't end well. Cat had a reputation for assigning the stories no one wanted to reporters that were in hot water with her. Kara sent up a silent prayer that it just wouldn't involve something gross or dirty, like the time Cat had sent someone to a cow farm to document the life of a farmer.
Shaking her head, Kara adjusted her glasses, "Of course not Miss Grant."
"Wonderful. I think you are the perfect reporter for the profile of our newest National City resident, Mike Matthews. I'm sure you know who he is."
More punishment for being late; Cat was putting Kara on the spot in front of the entire staff. Her face was blank as she tried to rack her mind to remember who exactly Mike Matthews was. Casting a glance over to her friend James Olsen he quickly mouthed Sports to her.
Turning her eyes back to Cat, Kara smiled and nodded her head, "Sure, he is the sports guy."
"Uh huh." Cat deadpanned, "And which sport is that? Oh, and Mr. Olsen, I'm sure you'll allow Keira to answer this one on her own right?" Her head turned quickly to glare at James.
Kara could feel the staff's eyes on her and she knew that Siobhan and Leslie were muffling laughs at Kara being in the hot seat. Shaking her head, finally admitting defeat, she offered up her best guess with a shrug of her shoulders, "The football guy?"
"Wrong. He's the newest third basemen for the National City Rockets with a bit of a bad reputation." Cat gave Kara a sharp look, "And since I bought the Rockets from Oliver Queen and own them, that means I need Baseball's Bad Boy to clean up his act. A nice little puff piece is a good start isn't it Keira?"
All of Cat's questions were just instructions and Kara felt all her joy and enthusiasm for reporting slipping away. Sports were of no interest to her and having to do a good media piece on this guy was worse. It didn't matter what she found out on her own, Mike Matthews was going to come across as a saint in the pages of Catco. Instead of fighting Cat, Kara just nodded her head and began jotting down a few notes.
"That's all." Cat said curtly, turning her attention back to the stack of papers on her desk. No one moved, unsure if Cat was releasing them. Lifting her eyes up a few second later, Cat looked at her staff and waved her hands, "Get out. Go. Do your jobs."
At once, the staff quickly got up and hurried towards the door, no one wanting to be the last one caught inside. As Kara had been the last to enter, she was luckily the first one to leave.
James quickly caught up to Kara as she headed out of Cat's office however.
"Sorry about your assignment." He said as they started walking towards her desk.
"It's fine." Kara said shaking her head, "I'll give Miss Grant what she wants and hopefully it won't be too bad. I know nothing about sports though, think you could look my draft over when it's done?"
"Yeah of course."
Reaching Kara's desk, her best friend Winn Schott spun around in his desk and smiled at her, "Well look who finally showed up."
"Don't start Winn." She replied as she sat. "I was working all night on that immigration investigation and I forgot to set my alarm."
"How did Miss Grant punish you?"
"Punish her? More like reward her." Came Siobhan's voice as she joined the trio, leaning against Winn's desk. "Matthews is hot."
"Hey." Winn whined, turning his attention to Siobhan with a wounded look on his face.
"Oh calm down Munchkin." Leslie interrupted as she also joined the conversation. "Siobhan didn't say she was leaving your bed for his. She is right though, Mike Matthews might be the hottest piece in the MLB. Kind of wasted on Danvers here though."
Kara frowned and looked to her friend, "What does that mean?"
"Please, you haven't given a guy a second look since Benjamin broke your heart."
"Hey!" Winn, James and Siobhan all said at once. Benjamin Rubel had worked in IT at CatCo with them and had been Kara's boyfriend, until he left her for a job at Wayne Enterprises and broke her heart. Despite it almost being a year since the breakup, it was one of the things Kara had struggled to work through and refused to let anyone talk about Benjamin with her.
Inhaling deeply as she tried to ignore the little pain in her heart at the mention of him, Kara opened her email to check things, seeing the first one was from Cat. It simply held Mike Matthew's address and the message said go now. Emails would have to wait. Closing her computer, Kara shook her head and gathered up her stuff.
"I gotta go talk to this guy. I'll see you all later." She said quickly, rushing out before James or Winn could stop her and ask if she was alright.
xxTPCxx
Catching a cab, it had only taken Kara fifteen minutes to get across town to the address Cat had given her. The building was one of the newer ones, and therefore one of the more expensive ones. The fact Mike had chosen to live her rubbed Kara the wrong way. Her loft was nice and since Cat owned the building it was in she did get a break on the rent but this place just looked obnoxious and like the type of building Maxwell Lord would own.
Walking in, Kara approached the desk and pulled out her press badge, showing it to the clerk.
"Hi. Kara Danvers, CatCo Media. I have an interview schedule with Mike Matthews."
The clerk barely acknowledge Kara, his eyes still on the magazine he was flipping through. "Yeah. Top floor. Penthouse 7."
Kara thanked the guy and headed towards the elevator, groaning again at the ridiculous number of floors between her and the penthouses. This wasn't making her impressed with Mike Matthews at all. It took a couple of minutes to finally reach the top floor and Kara navigated her way down the halls, finally finding number 7.
Mere seconds after she had knocked, the door opened and a young woman stepped out, avoiding eye contact with Kara as she dashed towards the elevator.
"Come in!" Called a voice from inside.
Hesitating for a moment, Kara finally pushed the door open and stepped inside. "Mike Matthews?" She called out to the seemingly empty room.
From the hallway stepped out Mike, dressed only in his boxers and his hair a bit disheveled.
"That's the name." He said with a smirk as he looked at Kara, "What can I do for you gorgeous?"
A hot flash spread over Kara as she quickly averted her eyes. Siobhan and Leslie had not been wrong in assessing that Mike Matthews was good looking. He had the kind of looks that were normally reserved for movie stars or models.
"Uh I can wait for you to get dressed." She said as she turned around, forcing her eyes off of Mike as she had been staring a little too intensely.
"You sure? Might save time later if you catch my drift."
The silly school girl feeling Kara had been having quickly vanished and instead turned to disgust at his overt come on. Spinning back around, her face was scrunched tight and she scoffed at him, "No thank you."
"Are you turning me down right now?" Mike asked with a laugh as he stepped into his living room, "That's a new one."
Kara rolled her eyes and huffed out another sigh, "Yeah, I'm sure it is. I'm Kara Danvers. Cat Grant set up an interview with you for CatCo Magazine."
"Cat?" His face came together in a look of pondering, as if he was really struggling to place the name Cat Grant. "Oh! The babe who owns the Rockets? Gotcha, gotcha."
Mike appeared entirely disinterested in Kara as he breezed past her towards his kitchen. Moving about, he grabbed a glass and a bottle and set about making himself a drink. "You want one?" He asked, lifting his head to look at Kara.
"It's 9:30 in the morning." She replied in disbelief.
"I got orange juice if you want a screwdriver."
This had to be one awful prank Cat was playing on her. As much as Kara embraced her kindness and openness with people, in such a small space of time, Mike Matthews had managed to press every single one of her buttons and annoyed himself squarely into the spot of the worst person ever in her book.
"Mr. Matthews, I'm here on behalf of Cat Grant to do this interview to help you rebuild your reputation of an overgrown frat boy and honestly, I'm not surprised you have it." Kara spoke firmly, shaking her head at Mike as she stayed rooted in her spot.
With a drink in his hand, Mike came out of the kitchen and cocked his head to the side as he studied Kara. She had the sneaky hot thing going for her, the glasses and politeness adding to it. There was also something about her that screamed to Mike it would be easy to get under her skin. That was his favorite game to play with girls.
"I don't like overgrown frat boy. I feel like I'm a regular frat boy. I was in a frat you know." Mike lifted the drink to his lips and took a gulp.
"Can you just get dressed so we can do this stupid interview and be done with each other?" Kara pressed.
"Mhm, see here's the thing," He replied with a grin, "Cat told me that she'd have a reporter shadowing me for my whole first week here. I'm a complicated man babe, I got layers and I can't be captured in a quick 20 minute chat."
"My name is not babe, it's Kara." She shot back quickly. It took a second for Mike's sentence to actually catch up to her. Her face fell as his grew in amusement. This was exactly the type of thing Cat would do and not mention.
Finishing his drink, Mike set the empty glass down and clapped his hands together. "So I've been up pretty much all night and morning. I think you ran into the why on your way in. So I'm gonna go crash for awhile. Feel free to make yourself comfortable and you know, really try to capture the importance I place on sleep in your story.
Rolling her eyes again, Kara folded her arms over her chest as Mike started to leave the area.
"Or feel free to join me." He added, tossing her a charming grin from over his shoulder.
Kara scolded herself silently for feeling a flutter of her stomach as he flirted. It didn't matter how good looking her was, Kara had decided in that moment he was going to be the most insufferable man on Earth.
She really had to get better at setting her alarm.